Hello, my wife and I are the proud owners of a 2001 Windstar sel. The van has about 136k and still runs/drives great. We are having an issue with brake noise. When you drive down the roads and hit any kind of bump or anything else in the road the front brake pads rattle like crazy (very embarrassing). I found that that some of the springs that go in between the brake pad and the pad mount/slide (not sure of exact name) were missing. I went to Autozone and bought new ones, installed them and the problem went away for a short time. After a few weeks the noise returned and I found that again some of the springs were missing. I got another set this time from Oreillys (different style more like the OEM). I also bought new brake pads. In less than 2 weeks they are rattling again. I also found that with all of the springs installed the pads were every tough to install. Is this a common problem with the Windstars? Has anyone else had this issue, if so what was the fix. Thank you in advance for any help.

 

I had an 03 Windstar from 53K miles to 174K miles and never had this problem.
Make sure the sliders move easily and inspect the calipers where the springs are seated. May be the holes got damaged in some way.